Projects

Ánnámáret

Ánnámáret, Sámi yoik
Ilkka Heinonen, Carelian bowed lyre jouhikko
Turkka Inkilä, electronics and shakuhachi
Marja Viitahuhta, video art
Ánnámáret is a Sámi yoiker with unique yoik voice and interpretation. With her band and visual artist she has created an audiovisual world. It combines Ánnámáret yoiks with the electronic music by Turkka Inkilä and Ilkka Heinonen's Carelian lyre jouhikko sound, while Marja Viitahuhta's video art is in conversation with the music.
The entity draws on both the rich Sámi yoik tradition and the living culture, nature, and everyday life of Sápmi, transporting the viewer through images and music into intensely experimental worlds. These ingredients take on a resonant and resonant form in this time, embodying and concretizing the search for roots and the revival of tradition, addressing both its positive and more challenging aspects.
The themes of the yoiks have been constructed during Ánnámáret's personal process of studying yoiks from archival recordings. Ánnámáret's new yoiks express ideas about life in the transition between traditional and modern culture. Ánnámáret's music takes as its starting point the yoiks and the modern framework created around them in collaboration with a working group. The result is a collision of old and new, but also an understanding and discussion between the old and the new.

Band

Ánnámáret, Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman is a Sámi yoiker. She released her first yoik album Nieguid duovdagat with her band in February 2021. Before that Anna Näkkäläjärvi-Länsman has released two solo albums with Ánnámáret Ensemble (Beallječiŋat 2011 and Gollehelmmot 2016). She has operated as a solo artist in many Sámi music productions.

Ilkka Heinonen is a musician and composer, who specialises in folk music. His instruments include the Finnish bowed lyre, G-violone and the contrabass. In addition to bands that have gained influence from European folk music cultures, Heinonen has worked as both a solo artist and in an orchestra, in concerts and in projects of modern and traditional music.

Turkka Inkilä is a multi-genre musician and composer. Together with his band Tölöläb, he has aimed to create electroacoustic music that breaks away from scenic conventions. The music combines the unpredictability of modern music, the sincere pursue for beauty and the bodily experience of electronic dance music. He is currently studying the Japanese Kinko school’s shakuhachi programme at the lead of his teacher Gunnar Jinmei Linder, and he actively participates at the Helsinki-based Eloa ry association as a composer, arranger and flautist.

Marja Viitahuhta is a media artist whose works include short films, presentations, installations, photographs and collages. Her works have been exhibited internationally, for example at the Cannes Film Festival, where her film 99 Years of My Life was awarded in 2004. The said work has also been acquired for MoMA’s and Kiasma's collections. Many of Viitahuhta’s works involve immortality in relation to existence, review women’s’ biographical stories and experiences, and study the relation between text and images.